


Monsoon

by altearther



Category: Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 10:02:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29997708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altearther/pseuds/altearther
Summary: AU. Raya is the Princess of the failing Kumandra Empire, where the past is not what is seems. A darker take on Raya and the Last Dragon.
Relationships: Namaari/Raya (Disney)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	Monsoon

-

9th year since Raya's birth.

(Raya) 

"Oh mighty Water Dragon, the women are crying for their husbands who have gone to war, the children are crying from their empty stomachs. Oh mighty Water Dragon, the nations are divided, and Kumandra is in disorder. I am the First Prince of the nation of Heart. Please hear my prayer and save my people!"

Raya raised her hands above her head as she pleaded to the 'Water Dragon'. Her hands were held with her thumbs and fingers forming a circle, symbolising the full moon on the night the First Emperor summoned the Water Dragon.

"The mighty Water Dragon will not do as a mere human asks!" said Namaari. Her arms were crossed over her puffed chest. With her sleek undercut and pristine white and gold robes, she looked perfectly the part of the proud Water Dragon. "If you wish to save your people, you must complete my three tasks!"

Raya bowed again, with even more exaggerated servitude. "Oh mighty Water Dragon, I will do as you ask!"

"Then-" Namaari looked around the playroom. She fixed her gaze on a pillar, which had a spiral pattern moulded around it. "First, you must slay the three-headed snake-"

(Namaari)

The sound of footsteps from outside the playroom took Namaari out of the game. She turned to the door as it opened, and as soon as she saw the Emperor of Kumandra enter, she snapped into a bowing posture, with her hands raised above her head.

"Ba, we're in the middle of our game!" Raya complained.

"I know, I know," said Benja accommodatingly. Namaari felt a tap on her arm, letting her know she could stand. "But Virana needs to leave after lunch to make it to another meeting."

"Ba!"

Benja smiled playfully. "You can continue playing after lunch."

Namaari could see the water clock tick in Raya's head, as she realised the meaning of what Benja said. When the realisation had fully set in, Raya rushed over and grabbed Namaari's arm in excitement, nearly pulling her head over heels.

"You're staying?" Raya asked.

Namaari turned away from Raya, whose face was a hair's breadth from her own, and brushed her hair shyly. She wasn't used to someone who wasn't her mother so close to her, but she didn't dislike it.

"My mother's coming back to Heart in a few days, so I was planning to stay until then."

At those words, Raya hugged Namaari so tightly Namaari felt she was being crushed. But Namaari didn't dislike that feeling either.

-

(Raya)

Benja had brought out the oval table for lunch, which Raya knew he used when he wanted to sit and talk with friends. Since it would have been rude to keep Virana waiting while her food turned cold, lunch was only served a little while after Raya and Namaari joined the table, and sat on the floor opposite from where their parents were sitting. 

For Raya, the servants brought out a simple lunch of rice with a side of chicken, along with a side of fish, and a bowl of sweet soup. It all looked fine, but Raya wasn't really hungry. She had only begrudgingly agreed to lunch because she knew Namaari would listen to her father over her. So when her father started eating, Raya started rearranging the rice in her bowl like it was a sand garden.

She glanced at Namaari beside her.

Namaari was eating her lunch obediently, skillfully scooping the rice into her mouth with her chopsticks, making no childish mess, and even looking beautiful as she ate.

Raya didn't realise she was staring at Namaari until the other girl turned and smiled at her. Raya turned away in a panic. But Namaari's shy smile, framed by the gold that circled around her ear, lingered in Raya's memory. It was as Raya's eyes skipped from the rice to the chicken to the soup - to anywhere but Namaari and that inexplicable panic - that she remembered a lesson her father had taught her earlier.

Raya pushed her bowl of soup so that it was placed between where she and Namaari sat. Namaari looked at the bowl, then at Raya, in puzzlement. 

"If this bowl was a castle, how would you take it without any losses?" Raya asked, with an air of self-satisfaction.

Namaari put down her chopsticks and considered the bowl carefully, placing her finger on her lips as she thought. "If the defenders' harvest was bad, or if they haven't completed their harvest before I attacked, I would siege the castle and wait for them to starve."

Raya frowned. She had expected Namaari to be stumped. But still...

"The people in the castle count as losses," said Raya.

Now it was Namaari who frowned.

"I could force the defenders to come out of the castle by attacking nearby villages."

"The people in the villages also count as losses."

"Unless they surrender?" Namaari asked, more to herself than to Raya. "But why would they surrender if they're not starving and they haven't taken any losses?"

"Give up?" Raya asked with a grin. Since Namaari always seemed to know everything, she was enjoying knowing something that Namaari didn't.

"No, wait," said Namaari, as she slapped her palm with her fist. "If I had spies in the castle, they could open the gates."

"But if the spies get caught, then they would be killed."

"Then it's impossible to win," protested Namaari. "I give up, what's the answer?"

Raya's grin grew wider, and she leaned into Namaari, as if she was sharing a deep, dark secret. "If you make an alliance with the person in charge of the castle, then you win without a fight!"

Raya leaned back to watch Namaari's expression and was delighted to see Namaari's eyes light up. 

"That's brilliant!" Namaari shouted. "The castle isn't the goal. The goal is-"

A dignified cough from across the table stopped Namaari mid-sentence. "Namaari, what have I taught you about talking while eating?"

Namaari grimaced sheepishly. "Sorry, ma."

-

(Benja) 

"Winning by befriending your enemy," said Virana thoughtfully, as Benja was escorting her to the palace's South Gate. "It's not a bad lesson to teach, but I wonder if Raya's too young to be learning it."

Benja smiled. He had a feeling since earlier that Virana didn't quite approve of what he'd been teaching Raya.

"Children their age lack subtlety," said Virana. "Making friends is a good thing. Carelessly making friends is an invitation for disaster. All the more so for the future Emperor of Kumandra."

Yet Namaari was old enough to be taught the art of war, thought Benja sadly.

"Kumandra has been at peace for eight decades," said Benja. "Preparing for war... In the end, we would only be hurting our own people."

"Kumandra has been an empire for fifty decades," said Virana. "War always returns. If we don't prepare our children, it is our children who will suffer."

"War returns when we can't trust each other," said Benja, an familiar frustration seeping into his voice. He had this argument with his father too, a long time ago. "When we're so prepared for a fight, it's the only thing we try."

As long as neighbours took care of each other as they would their own, as long as the nations shared their wealth, as long as Kumandra remained united, there would be peace, and there would be prosperity.

If only everyone knew.

-

15th year since Raya's birth.

(Raya)

Raya watched the chiefs of Kumandra enter the Council Room with faces full of gloom. She was leaning over the short wall just across the courtyard, but that place where her father was seemed so far away it might as well have been across a canyon.

"Do you think the drought will end soon?" asked Namaari.

Raya turned to Namaari, who was leaning over the wall beside her. Namaari, whose body normally shone with indefatigable pride, was shrouded by that same fog-like gloom. More than any starving child, more than any crying babe, seeing Namaari so beaten down made Raya's heart ache.

"It will," said Raya, with more determination than confidence. Despite countless offerings to the Water Dragon, the drought that loomed over Kumandra had continued for a year. Fang, as well as Spine and Tail, had suffered two ruined harvests. Only Heart and Talon, which were seated on the main body of the Great River, were largely spared. Raya placed her hand on Namaari's back. "And Ba will make sure no one goes hungry in Kumandra until then."

Namaari's face twisted in a complicated expression. Anger? Guilt? Raya yearned to soothe Namaari's pain, but she could only stand helplessly beside her.

"I heard-" Namaari started to say, before she stopped herself. Raya thought it was strange. Namaari never held back.

"What did you hear?" Raya asked. She could feel the muscles on Namaari's shoulders tense as Namaari clenched her fists.

"I see abandoned children on the streets every day," said Namaari, in a voice close to pleading. "There's no food in the countryside, so the parents have sent them to the cities to beg. We've opened the food stores, but we can't provide shelter for everyone. People are fighting for places to sleep beside roads trodden by horses and mixed with waste."

"It's hard," said Raya. Heart had also taken in refugees from across Kumandra, so she had seen many of the same scenes. Her father had opened up royal land to build refugee shelters, but without an end to the drought, more refugees washed daily into the cities like driftwood after a storm.

"So why hasn't Benja used the Dragon Gem?!" 

Raya pulled back her hand in shock from Namaari's anger and accusation.

"That's-"

What could she say? Since the First Emperor was given the Dragon Gem by the Water Dragon, the emperors of Kumandra had used the Gem to bring the rains and halt the floods. Raya fixed her gaze on the white step below the wall she was leaning on. 

"I don't know," said Raya. "But if the Dragon Gem could end the drought, Ba would have used it already."

She knew Namari knew it too.

"Maybe he can't use the Dragon Gem."

Raya narrowed her eyes. "What...?" 

Namaari's next words were spoken carefully, in a hitching voice. "I heard... that Benja can't use the Dragon Gem because he's too weak. Because the Water Dragon doesn't think he's fit to rule."

"Who's saying that?!" The words exploded from Raya's throat before she realised it. When she saw Namaari stare at her in shock, she regretted them immediately. She braced herself against the short wall, turtling her head between her arms. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... It's just..."

How could someone lie about her father?! When he had accepted tens of thousands of refugees, sent out hundreds of grain ships, and worked tirelessly to persuade every merchant and noble family to open their food stores? The people loved her father because of his kindness and generosity, so how could someone say he was weak because of it?

It was a while before Raya noticed a hand on her back, and realised her own fists were clenched.

"I know," said Namaari.

-

(Namaari)

Namaari had to remind herself not to be angry. Raya didn't cause the drought. Neither did Benja, nor Heart. Whether Benja was a strong ruler was another- Namaari stopped herself from going down that path.

Why did she have to say those things to Raya? To tell the truth about what she'd heard? Or because she wanted to take out her anger and powerlessness on someone? Didn't that make her the worst person in all of this? Namaari sighed and pushed herself up from the wall. She stretched her limbs as she stood, working out the nervous tension that had gathered in them like taut rope.

"How about we go for a spar?" asked Namaari. "Standing around waiting for our parents won't help the drought end any faster." A smile crept onto Namaari's lips. "And maybe throwing you on your ass would make me feel better."

Raya did a little scoff, then broke out in a smile. As Raya stood, Namaari saw the dark clouds part from her face. Like warm sunshine after spring rain, Namaari couldn't help but feel refreshed by that smile.

"I remember you were the one on your ass the last time we duelled," said Raya.

"I remember," said Namaari playfully, making sure to stare into Raya's eyes.

Like a flower in new bloom, Raya blushed and turned away.

-

18th year since Raya's birth.

(Raya)

Benja's brow was lined with creases, one for each year the drought's cracked fingers had spread across Kumandra. Raya wondered when he grew so old, as if three years on the throne had been fifteen years on his body. The creases only grew deeper when he heard Namaari's request.

"Please, let me pray with Raya to the Water Dragon," said Namaari.

They were in the Council Room, that place of power and responsibility Raya had daydreamed of when she was a child. She had gotten to know it since then as a place of vicious argument and bitter division, of things deemed impossible, and of unhappy compromise.

But if there was one thing Raya was certain of, amidst the chaos of five nations scrabbling for what they could get, it was that if Namaari was with her, it would somehow be okay. Though three years of daily prayer had not brought the rain, if Namaari was there, somehow...

As Raya watched her father ponder, she felt Namaari grasp her hand beneath the low table, and squeeze it tightly. Though it was only her hand, Raya felt a warmth as if she'd been embraced between Namaari's arms. The Temple of the Water Dragon was a sacred place few in Heart were allowed to enter, let alone from other nations. But even if Namaari wasn't from Heart, she was her heart.

"Do you trust Namaari with your life?" asked Benja.

Since the beginning of the drought, glimpses of the softer side of her father had slowly become as rare as precious stones. But his expression as he spoke was more serious than even when he met with the chiefs of the other nations. When that serious gaze fixed upon Raya's own, she straightened her back, and faced her father with equal seriousness.

"Yes," Raya answered, as her heart hammered in her chest. This was the final secret she kept from the person she trusted the most in the world. Once Namaari knew what she knew, there would be no more barriers between them.

"And you, Namaari, do you trust Raya with your life?"

"I do," said Namaari.

"I'll allow it," said Benja, as he revealed a rare smile. In that smile, Raya saw a glimpse of that rare softness he had been forced to hide away for years.

-

Moonlight poured through the open roof of the cavern, illuminating the platform where the Dragon Gem sat. Water pooled at the base of the platform, flowing down the stairs of the Temple as Raya and Namaari ascended them. Behind the Dragon Gem, beyond the cavern wall, was Heart Lake, where the Water Dragon was said to sleep.

Raya crossed the pool of water atop islands of stone to the center platform. As she crossed, she remembered her father training her on these steps. Here, she had learnt to fight as if she was dancing, waiting for her opponent to strike, dodging or parrying, always maintaining balance, always preparing to counterstrike.

Those nostalgic days had been cut short. When the drought ended, perhaps...

"This is the Dragon Gem," said Raya. She forced herself to channel more strength into her voice than she really felt. Namaari was here, and Raya wanted to be optimistic for her at least, if not for herself. And as Raya thought about how much she wanted things to get better - for Namaari, for Kumandra - Raya really did feel that there was still hope.

She placed her hands on the Dragon Gem, which shone brightly with the reflected light from the full moon, like a moon in miniature. But as Raya lifted the Dragon Gem to begin her prayer, the moonlight also illuminated a deep flaw. A large crack on the inside of the Dragon Gem.

A chilling terror washed over her, like she was standing above deep water atop new ice.

"Why...?"

-

(Namaari)

Namaari watched Raya's back with a gnawing guilt as Raya carefully placed the Dragon Gem back onto its pedestal. Soon, Raya would turn towards her. Soon, she would have to make her move.

Namaari felt like she had been buried alive in a deep pit. She couldn't breath, she couldn't move. But she had to move. For the sake of her family and her people, she had to move.

"I'm sorry," Namaari whispered.

In the end, she was the Princess of Fang first, and Raya's... She was Raya's friend second.

-


End file.
